February 8, 2000

Attacks Renewed in Lebanon Strife

By DEBORAH SONTAG

ERUSALEM, Feb. 8 -- The conflict in Lebanon continued to heat up
today as Shiite Muslim guerrillas
killed another Israeli soldier, the
sixth in two weeks, and Israeli warplanes retaliated less than 24 hours
after their first bombardment shut
down civilian life in Lebanon.

As Arab and some European countries condemned Israel for its air
strikes, Prime Minister Ehud Barak
lamented that civilian sites had to be
struck and that the Middle East
peace effort was dealt a blow. But he
defended his decision to order a
harsh reprisal for what he called the
guerrillas' systematic violations of
the rules of engagement in the low-level war zone of southern Lebanon.

"Our goal is not to strike at civilians," said Mr. Barak, wearing a
black bomber jacket as he visited the
northern Israeli border town of Qiryat Shemona. "Our goal is not to
close the door in the face of the
possibility of continuing in the peace
process. However, the primary responsibility of a government is to
protect its citizens, its army and
those who work with it."

Israeli officials said today that
they would ignore the four-year-old
agreement governing the conflict,
which prohibits involving civilians in
the violence, until the Iranian-backed
guerrillas began to abide by the rules
themselves.

They said the Hezbollah, or Party
of God, guerrillas increasingly based
their command posts in Lebanese
villages, using them to launch deadly
rockets at Israeli soldiers.

Syria and Lebanon called for the
international committee that monitors the conflict to convene and
urged that all sides refrain from
attacks on civilians. That thinking
seemed to prevail, at least in the
light of day.

Israel's second bombing, late today, targeted guerrilla strongholds.

And by this evening, no Katyusha
rockets had crossed the border to
land on Qiryat Shemona or other
northern towns. That surprised
many Israelis who expected the typical pattern of cross-border retaliation for Israeli shelling. They wondered aloud if the guerrillas were
being belatedly restrained by Syria
or by the Lebanese government.

Radio Damascus accused Israel of
deliberately sabotaging the Israeli-Syrian peace effort, which the Syrians froze last month. Advisers to Mr.
Barak said the negotiations could not
resume until Syria held back Hezbollah, but Mr. Barak continued to express optimism that the process
could be renewed.

In northern Israel, many residents
who are tired of the cycle of violence
chose to flee southward rather than
wait for a rocket to fall. Schools,
factories and stores were closed, and
Mr. Barak declared a state of emergency in the region. On army orders,
tens of thousands of others crammed
into all too familiar air raid shelters,
where the anxiety was as thick as the
boredom was enervating.

By late evening, after the death of
the sixth soldier was made public in
Israel, radio reports hinted that the
bombing might be renewed. They
said Mr. Barak, who is also the defense minister, was conferring by
phone with his security cabinet to
determine his next move.

In Lebanon, where Israeli bombs
destroyed the transformers that provide electricity to Beirut, Tripoli and
Baalbek, many Lebanese were
stunned.

They had just finished repairing
the damage caused by the last large
Israeli air strike, a more deadly one
that hit some of the same power
stations last June. They said they felt
that they were knocked off their feet
again.

Israeli Army officials said the last
bombardment, which was ordered
by the outgoing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had served to deter the guerrillas for months. That
bombing caused an estimated eight
deaths and scores of wounded, compared with reports of 18 wounded
today.

"Verbal messages alone do not
achieve the aim" said Maj. Gen.
Giora Eiland, the army's head of
operations. "Thus we had to act."

In 1999, 13 Israeli soldiers were
killed. Army officials had begun to
declare victory over the guerrillas
until the fighting intensified in the
last month. They say the guerrillas,
facing Mr. Barak's pledge to withdraw Israeli troops by July, are
pushing for an impressive 11th-hour
showing in the chronic conflict.

"I believe that part of the increasing Hezbollah activity is not just that
they want to create obstacles for
peace," said Haim Ramon, a cabinet
minister. "They also believe that
there's a chance we will withdraw
early and they are trying to show
they had a victory over Israeli
forces. We told the Lebanese government that this will not happen until
July."

Across the political spectrum,
many Israelis grimly supported the
bombardment, still stunned by the
gory television images of wounded
soldiers that were broadcast live on
Sunday night.

"If we agreed to accept blows and
remain silent, we would be accompanied by this throughout the course of
the negotiations," said Dan Meridor,
a Center Party legislator.

But others expressed disgust at
the pattern repeating itself in Lebanon, and some urged Mr. Barak to
withdraw troops immediately rather
than wait until July.

"Israel has to begin leaving now,"
David Grossman, a leading novelist
and essayist, wrote in the newspaper
Yediot Ahronot. "Evacuate the outposts, bring the soldiers home and
redeploy at the border. Go. Learn to
live with the insult, swallow the empty pride, stop feeding the fire of our
pitiful arrogance still left in us with
more and more of our young soldiers
dying.

"We entered this war as losers,
and if Barak gets us out of there now,
this will be his first victory as prime
minister. But to do this, he has to
acknowledge that we have lost this
war. We have lost.

"It's O.K. to say it aloud. No one
dies from saying it. That's not what
people die from."

Confidants of Mr. Barak said today
that he was bound by his pledge to
pull the troops out of southern Lebanon by July. While he prefers to do so
in the context of an agreement with
Syria, which could presumably guarantee that the fighting would not
move into northern Israel, associates
said he would do so unilaterally if
necessary.

Asked today how long the present
fighting would continue, Mr. Barak
said: "I'm not a prophet. I'm just the
prime minister of Israel."